If you skip the paperwork, we’ll take your children.

Decades from now, there will be a true story. It might be a book or a movie, or both, or maybe something new that doesn’t even exist yet. But it will be a famous, powerful story about someone’s search for their birth parents, whom they haven’t seen since they were taken away as a child by the United State Government in 2018.

Mark my words, this will absolutely happen. The only uncertainty is how famous it will actually be. If I am still alive, I will do my best to make it more famous.

This policy is going to be remembered by history as evil. When it is remembered at all, of course; Americans have a knack for forgetting the uglier parts of our history. I don’t really have the energy to say much about this, it’s a painful subject to think about and also while I was preparing this post I learn that Attorney General Jeff Sessions it going to deny, or at least limit, asylum to people escaping domestic violence. I can only assume he’s trying to set a precedent to make it harder for his victims to escape. But a few things are worth saying.

First, this is evil, and cruel, and illegal in the eyes of any sensible court, and despite the repeated use of the passive “separating families”, I can’t see it as anything but kidnapping. But what really frightens me isn’t that a few sadistic assholes in power set this policy, it’s that so many Americans are willing to support it.

A significant number of Americans seem to honestly think that taking children away is an appropriate, proportionate response to people traveling without proper documentation.

That’s like evil witch in the dark fairytale forest level shit right there.

“They’re at best criminals, and at worst invaders”, is close enough to an exact quote to something I read. Invaders don’t bring children, they bring armies. You want something sneaky, like spies, saboteurs, or terrorists. And again, if they are criminals then their crime is skipping the fucking paperwork; what the hell is your idea of proportion? Do you shoot people in the knee for cutting in line at 7-11?

Let alone people seeking asylum, which specifically allows you to enter illegally, because you have to actually be here to apply. From the Department of Homeland Security:

To obtain asylum through the affirmative asylum process you must be physically present in the United States. You may apply for asylum status regardless of how you arrived in the United States or your current immigration status.

Can you imagine escaping violence and terror, coming to seek help and a new life in the land of the free, and having your children stolen from you before being sent back?

I’ve written a lot about empathy on this blog. About compassion. About making this world a better place to live, a kinder and happier place to be. Shit like this makes me feel like I’m trying to fill a hole with a shovel, while a team of backhoes keeps digging it bigger. America isn’t something to be proud of right now, and it feels like the whole world is getting darker.

Lest I lapse into self-pity, I want to address, or at least mention, a few other things I’ve seen written about this policy.

They’re only foreigners

I haven’t seen it in those exact words, but I’ve seen it multiple times and that’s always the way it’s said. Apparently it should only bother me if it’s American families being destroyed. This viewpoint is beneath contempt, but it gives me a great excuse to post this actual 1941 political cartoon by the one and only Dr. Seuss.

Dr. Seuss was pretty racist about Japanese-Americans, but this one was spot-on.

The caption on her shirt was actually in the original, it was a slogan used by American isolationists at the time.

Obama started it

This one is just weird, and I’ve only seen a handful of people make the claim. I literally don’t understand what they expect from it. I mean, I could imagine policies that I would trust the Obama administration to enforce but not this week’s Trump administration, in fact the policy of sex-discrimination that included sexual orientation comes to mind as I type this, but this is a bad policy no matter who’s doing it. If Obama were president right now, I would be opposing this policy. Also, Obama is not president right now.

It’s not clear to me why people say this. I’m aware of no reason to believe it’s true, but even if it were, so what? Do they expect me to change my mind about it if Obama came up with it? There’s also that weird thing where a bunch of people seem to still be fighting against that awful tyrant in power, President Barack Hussein Obama, even though he’s been out of power for a year and a half now.

I mean, just as a reminder: Trump actually won the 2016 election and is currently president.

Democrats made a law

This one comes straight from Trump himself, via Twitter, of course.

Jun 5, 2018 06:58:52 AM Separating families at the Border is the fault of bad legislation passed by the Democrats. Border Security laws should be changed but the Dems can’t get their act together! Started the Wall.

This is either a complete fabrication, or that classic abuser tactic of blaming someone else, “you’re making me hit her.” Outright lie either way. All these border control agencies are part of the Department of Homeland Security, an executive branch agency. Trump is the chief executive.

Since I first posted this I’ve been told that the Obama connection is there, but not what it seems to say. See, AG Jeff Sessions has created this by reinterpreting an Obama administration policy intended to give care to teenagers who arrive on their own.
Follow that chain of logic for a minute: “If teenagers show up without guardians, we’ll get them some care” becomes “if families show up, we’ll kidnap the children, including babies less that a year old.”
Also, my mother objected to my use of the term “foster care”, because these kids are being, in her words, “warehoused”. So I’ve changed that.